


Someday ~Fade to Zero~

by chaineddove



Series: Zero Series [3]
Category: Loveless
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-14
Updated: 2006-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-28 11:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaineddove/pseuds/chaineddove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death covered in lace and ruffles, cruelty concealed by sweet faces, perfection capped by floppy furry ears — this is what they are, in the eyes of the only mother they have ever known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someday ~Fade to Zero~

**Author's Note:**

> Mother's Day. And proof that I am very, very sick and wrong.

There had been no parent but Nagisa-sensei, and no life but each other’s. If there had been something before, they didn’t remember it. If there had been some life not lived in each other’s pockets, they didn’t know it. They had met when they were four, and for both of them, what came before faded away into nothing. Into Zero.

Odd, fey creatures. Frightening children. Little monsters. They heard these things, far earlier than anyone thought they knew what they meant. But they understood, and it was all right, they didn’t mind it. Death covered in lace and ruffles, cruelty concealed by sweet faces, perfection capped by floppy furry ears — this is what they are, in the eyes of the only mother they have ever known. But they are also the blood thrumming through their veins, chased by the same pounding heartbeat, and pain cloaked with no pain, and innocence locked away behind layers of fear.

When they were very small, they believed that they had come into the world on the same day, in the same instant, drawn the same breath, blinking at the sudden bright light of the sun. They must have been together always, hatching from the same egg into the light, limbs tangled together as they were born. Youji liked the image of the two of them tail to nose, curled up inside until it was time to come out and see everything else that was. But first, before everything, there was _them_. Before the world, before Nagisa-sensei, before Natsuo and Youji, there was always Zero, like the light ridged mark on their chests, tail to nose and limbs intertwined, and not even air to come between them.

“Babies don’t come from eggs, _stupid!_ ” taunted an older girl once, one of the first children they had ever met, when Nagisa-sensei finally allowed them to go outside. “Your parents brought you here; I saw them,” she continued to taunt. “You have _different_ parents. You didn’t come from the same Mama, either, and you didn’t even come here at the same time!”

And while Youji shook with silent temper and fury and tears he refused to shed, Natsuo stepped forward in front of him, tail bristling, and glared at the impudent, cruel girl and said quite calmly, “If you keep talking, we will kill you,” and there must have been something in his eyes, even when he was only five, to cause the girl to take a few steps back before she could manage to find her balance.

“You couldn’t,” she said, but not ‘you wouldn’t.’ “You’re just kids.”

“Try and see,” Natsuo told her, and Youji stepped forward then and took his hand, because he was Zero’s Sacrifice, and if they would fight, they would do it side by side. It didn’t matter how very little they knew, because like this, hands linked and hearts beating in unison, they were invincible.

Later, when a horrified teacher had whisked away the bleeding, sobbing form of the older girl, they stood in Nagisa-sensei’s office and faced her without fear, because after all, they had only done what they said they would. Nagisa-sensei had smiled and not punished them at all, and that night Natsuo curled around Youji in wordless comfort, and they finally understood that whatever the truth was as others saw it, they knew better. Natsuo stroked a soft hand over Youji’s ears, and they knew with an unbreakable certainty that wherever they had come from, they had breathed from their very first breath as one.

After that, the other children were terrified of them, and the whispers started. Their world closed around them: Nagisa-sensei, training, frightened whispers, lace and ruffles and new ways to inflict pain. “Try this,” Natsuo would say, laughter in his eyes, and they would end up bleeding and giggling helplessly on the floor, lightheaded. They licked the salty blood from each other’s wounds and felt stronger. Nagisa-sensei scolded them for getting blood on their clothing, but not for anything else. She loved them then, they think, in her own twisted way. These were her perfect children, instruments of mayhem — zero pain, zero conscience, zero fear.

***

They still remember their first real winter, running outside in ten bulky layers of clothing after Nagisa-sensei bundled them into it. They could see their breath as tiny, silver clouds, and their lungs felt tight as they drew the crisp air in. It smelled fresh and white and different, and when the crystals began falling from the sky, they raised their mittened hands to catch them, then stuck out their tongues to taste them, then finally stripped off their mittens and their coats and hats to feel them. Their skin tingled where the white, powdery stuff touched, and they stripped off more layers, rolling with wild laughter as it frosted the grass, making their hair and ears and tails heavy and wet. Then suddenly, they were shivering, and they were tired, so tired, and they woke up in the infirmary a week later, and that is the only time in their recollection that Nagisa-sensei ever struck them.

“ _Never_ do that again!” she raged, and there was a red handprint on Natsuo’s cheek, and Youji reached up to touch the identical mark on his own, even though he had not felt it. What he did feel, for the first time in his existence, was fear. Their eyes met over Nagisa-sensei’s head, wide and uncomprehending as she stormed out of the room, and for a very long time, they did not understand what had happened to them.

The slap was not a punishment, but being put in separate beds was, and the stern-faced nurse pulled a curtain between them and anxiety was tight in their chests, because they had never been out of each other’s sight. That night Youji snuck past the curtain into Natsuo’s bed and nuzzled the hair between his ears and Natsuo turned into his embrace, and they fell asleep like that, just as they had in the snow.

***

They had tried to take each other’s ears for the first time when they were barely ten, seeing them as ultimate mark of their belonging, of their oneness. Nagisa-sensei had caught them at it as they were trying to figure out exactly how the whole thing worked, because the older student who had mentioned it had failed to mention the details. Sensei had screamed then too, and separated them for three days, and told them that they wouldn’t be nearly as cute without the ears and that they were absolutely to keep them _or else._

On the third night of separation, Youji finally managed to climb out of his room through the carelessly open window, and find Natsuo not sleeping in his own confinement, because of course they couldn’t sleep unless they were together. Youji’s hand bled from breaking the window to get into Natsuo’s room, and Natsuo licked his knuckles clean and drew him into bed, where they lay as close together as they could come, skin to skin, trying to still their pounding hearts. “Mark me as belonging to you,” Natsuo whispered into the darkness, “so that everyone can see and they can never separate us again.” And Youji touched their lips together, because they had discovered they liked that feeling, and thought.

Instead of his ears, Youji had taken his eye, and Nagisa-sensei had raged in fury before Natsuo had time to reciprocate, but Natsuo smiled contentedly even when he was in the infirmary, because no one tried to separate them anymore, terrified of the results. Youji slept in Natsuo’s hospital bed while his head was wrapped in gauze, and though Natsuo couldn’t see anything until the bandages came off, he felt Youji’s breath against the top of his head, and they were closer then, in the dark.

***

They still sleep curled around each other like kittens, they still play with stuffed animals, they still can’t sleep alone, and they still have their ears, though probably not for very much longer. There are a lot of things about the world that they still don’t understand, but they know enough to realize that someday soon they will have to grow up. Sometimes, they think they might miss the furry, tangible proofs of their innocence, but then, according to so many, they have never been innocent at all.

Their touches ghost over each other’s skin, stroking and feathering over the dulled nerve endings which suddenly feel so sensitized that they wonder how other people, not-Zero, can stand it. There is so much there in the simple sensation of a touch of hands and a meeting of lips. They have touched like this countless times, but it is stronger each time: the desire to once again be one, to breathe each other’s air, to feel their hearts pound in tandem, to be born together into the adult world, as they were unable to be born together into the world of their childhood. Each time they come a little closer, and they know enough now to realize just how it will happen someday, and that someday is coming soon.

They know fear now, and they understand pain, so it is the turn of this strange, intangible thing called love. They are not clear on what it means, but they think, when someday comes, they will know.


End file.
